The present invention relates to a sealing aid for fastening tightly a rubber plug inserted into an opening of a neck portion of a container for containing liquid, particle, powder or gas substance.
In clinical, chemical and pharmaceutical fields, an amount of reagent for use in an automatic chemical analyzer or a human injection is very small, and thus it is necessary to seal an accurate amount of reagent into a container quantitatively. Usually, a rubber plug is used to clog an opening formed in a neck portion of the container in order to protect the reagent against leakage, deterioration or modification due to exposure with air. Moreover, the plug is covered with a seal cap made of a thin aluminum plate which is bent to correspond with an outer contour of the neck portion in order to prevent the rubber plug from being removed from the container and prevent any loss of airtightness of the container due to an elastic recovery force of the rubber plug during transportation of the container. The seal cap also functions to show the amount of unused reagent contained in the container.
FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing a conventional container with the known seal cap mentioned above. In FIG. 1, a rubber plug (not shown) is inserted into an opening formed in a neck portion of a reagent container 1 forming an airtight container. In addition, the rubber plug is covered with a seal cap 2 made of a thin aluminum plate. A peripheral portion of the seal cap 2 is bent to correspond with an outer contour of a flange provided at a top of a neck portion 4 of the container so as to fix the seal cap 2 to the container 1. In such a construction, the seal cap 2 functions to prevent the rubber plug from being detached due to an elastic recovery force thereof. As shown in FIG. 1, the seal cap 2 has slit-like cutout portions 3 which are aligned with a broken line which extends over the upper and side surfaces of the seal cap 2. The cutout portions 3 function to separate the seal cap 2 into two halves, so that the seal cap 2 can be easily removed from the container 1.
In order to remove the seal cap 2, the tip portion of tweezers or a driver is first inserted into the cutout portion 3 so as to pry up a central tongue portion b of the seal cap 2. Then, connections 5 of the seal cap 2 are broken so that the tongue portion 6 can be elevated above the seal cap 2. The raised tongue portion 6 is further pulled up by means of the fingers so as to remove it from the container 1. After that, the remaining portion of the cap 2 is removed from the neck portion 4 by means of the fingers. As mentioned above, in order to remove the seal cap 2 from the reagent container 1, a special tool such as tweezers or a driver is required. A fairly long time for removing the cap is also necesssary. Moreover, since the human fingers are used for pulling up the tongue portion 6, the fingers are liable to be injured, particularly since the seal cap 2 is made of a thin plate of aluminum having a sharp edge and a cut surface with connections 5 having a saw-tooth shape. The cap as taught by the prior art leads to many wounded fingers.